I Have No Need Of Monsters - Reality Is Frightening Enough For Me

I have no need of monsters - reality is terrifying enough for me

I have no need of monsters. I do not need Obama to be the most narcissistic narcissist since man first heard the echo of his own voice - his creating the 'seal of the office of the president-elect', suffices rather well for me. I do not need him to be the anti-Christ, his putting his long held disdain for the that document which he has never shown any glimpse of understanding - the U.S. Constitution - into destructive practice (see his past and forthcoming legislative efforts), is terrifying enough for me.

I do not need Bildeburghers or black helicopters, the actions of Paulson, Geitner and House and Senate who feel no need to read legislation before voting on it, and Serv.Gov have me quaking in my boots enough already.

I have no need for elaborate monsters, there are real ones afoot here and now. Like the movie makers of the 30's & 40's understood, the monster you don't see is far more real than the one you do. Our monsters are non-corporeal Ideas, and they animate the bodies of ordinary people in such a way, that, even more so than sci-fi Pod People, they horrify me today. They horrify me because they are living breathing people, here among us, living next door or even with you in your own home. They are made far more monstrous than any CGI or movie make-up by what they uncomprehendingly believe, than any fictional ghoul could ever conjure up... and what makes them more dangerous than any magical talisman or spell - they believe they are right - without understanding what they believe - they believe they are right.

Hitler was no monster. Portraying him so only makes him only safer to our sensibilities, and as a consequence even more of a threat. Hitler was worse than a monster, he was a human being who believed that his sophistic estimations and deductions which he "clearly and distinctly" imagined to be true, were correct.

Some of the most celebrated minds in 19th & 20th century America thought it perfectly right and proper to use the Govt to allow and disallow who could, and who could not, marry. They felt themselves perfectly in the right, and competent to, judge who was worth allowing to have children, and who should be prevented from ever doing so.

As Progressives, in both the Democrat and Republican parties, there were large numbers who were for eugenic programs, including Oliver Wendell Holmes on the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court. And they put those ideas into law.

I've no need of monsters, we've had real people, otherwise kind and sensible people, willing to do monstrous things because, without understanding what they believed, and content with that, they thought they were right.

I've no need of conspiracies, we've had individuals perfectly willing to act in the open to destroy our way of life, because they didn't understand what they were doing, and they were self satisfied in thinking that they were right to do so.

We've had Truman attempting to nationalize the steel industry, we've had Nixon decreeing wage and price controls. We've had congress passing legislation forcing businesses to compromise with, and allow a say in their decisions to those who wish them ruin, labor unions. We've had two Presidents and Secretaries willing to nationalize financial and industrial institutions... to destroy the free market 'in order to save the free market'. We have people seriously thinking about the sensibility of states seceding from the union. We've had... we've had much worse than that.

There has been worse, and I've no doubt that there is worse coming.

And it is coming, and it is able to come, because something worse than an evil sorcerer has been at work; a well intentioned philosopher, centuries ago, made it possible for people to publicly, and with intellectual respectability, to advance the most spurious nonsense based on the proposition that it could be true, and if that could be true, then this must be true, and therefore these X things must be done.... And part and parcel of that, his ideas made it nearly impossible for those who innocently read his thoughts, to detect errors in their own thoughts, or even feel the need to do so.

That long ago foolish philosopher was Descartes, and because he didn't think, we're doomed - unless we learn to spot and avoid his errors, but that would require doing away with our schools - but people believe our schools are good, even though they are bad... we may indeed be doomed, doomed to apply his errors, to our lives.

And he was followed by many other philosophers who consciously, and unconsciously, have done much worse.

And the result is that today we have no need of monsters... we have people, willing to do what they are pleased to say is right, and 'for our own good'.

Horrifying.

To be continued soon....